PCNS WAN Information

What is a Wide Area Network (WAN)?

Glossary of Network Terms Glossary of Internet Terms

Wide Area Network (WAN) - A WAN is two or more LANs in separate geographic locations connected by a remote link. A WAN is also a communication system that connects geographically remote equipment. This type of network is primarily used to interconnect an organization's voice, video, data and computer business systems including of course, their Local Area Networks (LAN).

In today's dynamic market, there are a multitude of connectivity options that should be considered when planning a wide area network installation. The most critical phase of this planning is in the design of the network. There are different topologies that will provide the best possible throughput for the data to your remote locations. In addition, with the most advanced hardware available which allows voice/fax connections to ride free on the existing data lines, thereby giving you a projected pay back on your equipment investment.

A WAN links these communications outside the organization's properties and crosses public areas that are regulated by local, national or international authorities. The public switched telephone network (PSTN) typically provides the links between remote sites but some organizations have established their WAN links using microwave, satellite or other communication technologies.

Both public and private Frame Relay (FR) networks are one form of WAN which has been gaining in popularity over the past few years. Four (4) channel/port FR concentrator and NNI switch can be used for testing FR applications as well as connecting to both private and public FR networks.

Another technique for combining diverse data protocols, such as Inter network Packet Exchange (IPX), Systems Network Architecture (SNA), Binary Synchronous Communications (BISYNC), Asynchronous Communications (ASYNC) and even Statistical Time Division Multiplexers (STDM or Stat Mux) onto a single transmission line is Time Division Multiplexing (TDM).

As a technique, TDM has been in widespread use throughout Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN) worldwide. Data networks have used this multiplexing method for many years because it has the singular advantage of being protocol insensitive. This fact makes it ideal for organizations having diverse data networking requirements.

A Wide Area Network can also be connected via the Internet, of which is in a sense a World-Wide Area Network. Many more organizations are looking to the Internet for connecting their remote offices and agencies in one way or another. The newest WAN technology is VPN. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. VPN allows a company or organization to connect their Local Area Networks (LAN) to one another over the internet. Another term is IP Tunneling. Initially this posed a security risk, due to the public nature of the internet. This has been resolved by products such as Novell's BorderManager which has 128 bit encryption as a feature of its (VPN) Virtual Private Networking module. Virtual Private Networking (VPN) provides an economical way to connect remote offices and mobile personnel and usage can be safe over the internet with the proper software. To utilize a Virtual Private Networking (VPN), the File Servers must be connected to a dedicated Internet Service Provider (ISP) connection... and have a dedicated IP address for the VPN server. Remote workstations do not need a dedicated IP address.